I'm not a panhandler or a crook. And yet you believe in me
enough to--"

"You will let me?" she urged, eagerly. "Say you will! Say
it."

"I'll make cleaner use of your faith," he returned, "by asking
you to say a good word for me to your brother, if ever I come
back here looking for a job. No, no!" he broke off, fiercely,
before she could answer. "I don't mean that. You must do
nothing of the kind. Forget I asked it."

With which amazing outburst, he turned on his heel, ran across
the lawn, leaped the low privet hedge which divided it from
the coral road, and made off at a swinging pace in the
direction of Coconut Grove and Miami.

"What a fool--and what a cur--a man can make of himself," he
muttered disgustedly as he strode along, without daring to
look back at the wondering little white-clad figure, watching
him out of sight around the bend, "when he gets to talking
with a woman--a woman with--with eyes like hers! They--why,
they make me feel as if I was in church! What sort of
bungling novice am I, anyhow, for work like this?"

With a grunt of self-contempt, he drove his hands deep into
the pockets of his shabby trousers and quickened his pace.
His fingers closed mechanically around a roll of bills, of
very respectable size, in the depths of his right-hand pocket.
The gesture caused a litter of small change to give forth a